After a vacancy of about seven months, the city of Sioux City has a new Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator.
Nancy Li becomes the second person to be in a city position that seeks to promote inclusion, although it has been tweaked in title and other aspects from the first post that was created in 2021.
Among those changes are that Li as Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator will be an employee of the Human Resources Department, with an eye at hiring a more diverse team of city employees, Mayor Bob Scott said Friday.
Scott said Li will also not be on the Inclusive Sioux City Advisory Committee, although she will work with them. The committee of Sioux city residents provides guidance to the council on topics related to inclusion, and the former city employee, Semehar Ghebrekidan, was on that committee.
Back in February, Ghebrekidan was placed on administrative leave. She was then terminated in late May, and shared her termination notice with media members.
The letter cited multiple violations by Ghebrekidan, but did not specify them.
Ghebrekidan supporters in March and April city council meetings spoke in defense of her, saying she organized or participated in many events that boosted inclusion of many groups in the city.
*Additionally, two medical marijuana law became law on Friday, although one more legal challenge is looming soon.
Nebraska’s Supreme Court has decided to expedite the appeal of a lawsuit seeking to void the state’s medical marijuana laws.
The Supreme Court's decision to take up the appeal means that the case will skip Nebraska's Court of Appeals.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Susan Strong previously dismissed the case, as well as a challenge earlier this week that aimed to prevent Governor Jim Pillen from signing the proclamation to certify the enactment of the new medical marijuana ballot measures that passed in November.
Pillen signed the proclamation certifying the enactment of the medical cannabis laws Thursday, meaning the laws went into effect Friday. During the signing, both the Governor and Attorney General released a joint statement, "cautioning the public to the limited nature of these proclamations," and that the proclamations do not represent their judgment on whether the initiatives are valid.
Pillen and the Attorney General said they, “believe that serious issues remain regarding the validity of these petitions under federal law and the Nebraska Constitution,” and that the measures being passed does not change that marijuana is a controlled substance under federal law that is unlawful to possess.
Both medical marijuana ballot measures received large support statewide in November, with the legalization initiative receiving 71 percent of the vote, and the regulation initiative receiving 67 percent.
*In other news, North Dakota regulators have granted permits to Summit Carbon Solutions to inject carbon dioxide roughly a mile underground at three well sites.
Summit says the permits will allow it to permanently store more than 350 million metric tons of CO2 produced by nearly 60 ethanol plants across the Midwest.
In a second action taken Thursday, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission also granted Summit a permit for a 28-mile pipeline route through two counties in the northwest part of the state.
State regulators in Iowa and North Dakota approved Summit’s pipeline route permits earlier this year. The company still needs a route permit in South Dakota before construction can begin in Iowa.
Summit says it’s on track to begin construction in early 2026 and operations in 2027.
